


You like a man with taste, I like a man with none

by kuro49



Series: from New York with love [6]
Category: Suits (TV), White Collar
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, White Suits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In his defence, it isn’t a double date when there are no <i>actual</i> relationships on the table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You like a man with taste, I like a man with none

**Author's Note:**

> In my defence, there’s going to be a double-date happening on Valentimes regardless of my status as forever-alone. Also, this became a whole lot longer than I expected but you know, _fics_. 
> 
> PS: Yes, I do know of the White Suits fic by VampirePam (btw it's a great fic, you can read it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/232631?view_full_work=true)) that features a very very similar setting, know that I am not trying to step on anyone's toes with this!

When Neal calls, Mike knows he really shouldn’t be surprised. He still is nonetheless because as hardwired as lying is to Neal Caffrey, it is with a twisted conviction that he is loyal in a way no one ever was in Mike’s life.

“Dinner at six, wear something nice.” And even on the street with New York’s midday noise rumbling loud in the background, Neal still manages to sound smooth and slick and suave and a whole other array honey sweet things. “Oh, and bring a date.”

“Unlike you, Neal, I don’t have a girlfriend on every continent.”

“I’m hurt you think of me that way, flattered but hurt.”

Mike grins as he makes another highlight in the file he is reading through and tells his friend to expect one.

“I booked a table for four already so just bring a friend. Or are you going to tell me you don’t have friends either?”

“You’re going to be without one soon enough, Caffrey.”

Neal lets out a laugh. “See you tonight.”

Mike murmurs the same with a small smile and replaces the receiver back into its cradle, he highlights another line and flips the page, all the while Harvey looks on from the entrance to the bullpen. (And because Mike is at his dumbest when he is working his hardest, he only bites the end of his highlighter cap and doesn’t see).

 

Because there are men, and then there are suits. And then there are men in suits, complete with waistcoats and cufflinks and shiny silver tie bars clean of incriminating prints.

Now, there are four. Mike supposes it really could be worse.

He blinks when Harvey holds the door in front of him and expectedly, Mike has to bite his lips to stop himself from saying something embarrassing.

 

Neal guesses he can say he is surprised at the company Mike brings but then that would be a blatant lie. And he has sworn off lying for an indeterminate time even as he continues to brush off Peter’s insistent questions of _why am I here_ that has slowly worked its way into less than subtle threats of _tell me what you are planning or I’m tossing your ass back in Supermax_ (he ignores that too).

With a subtle lingering pat to Peter’s hand, Neal just smiles like he has another secret hidden in his sleeve and stands up to wave the two over to their table. He eyes the three-piece suit that tempts him into running a hand along the seamless cut and bites his tongue back to greet the man.

“You must be Harvey Specter.” Neal doesn’t stop smiling, rather it widens into a full Caffrey grin.

It has Mike staring at him in alarm and Peter standing immediately to take Harvey’s hand from his, like the man is in need of rescue from Neal’s intentions. (He really has none, oh, he swears.) Mike almost looks relieved at Peter’s intervention and Neal nearly rolls his eyes.

“Pearson Hardman.” Peter says, impressed when Harvey hands him his business card.

“And you’re FBI.” Harvey states with a trace of a smile that is more polite than friendly. If it isn’t for Mike’s general precarious situation with the law, Harvey Specter would welcome a friend within these lines of work. Except Mike is what he is and being that, making friends with the Feds will only be dragging danger to their lawn by the front of his teeth. “And you? I remember you from the firm just the other day.”

“Neal Caffrey, I consult for the FBI.” He sits with a flourish and gestures at them to do the same. “I was taking Mike to lunch.”

“You were at their firm?” Peter turns to Neal with narrowed eyes, like there is nothing more pressing at hand. And perhaps to Peter, there really isn’t, not when he can pinpoint the exact day when Neal walks out of the office with a dance in his steps, claiming a lunch date with a ‘friend’. “He’s a CI for the Bureau, C for criminal in his case, not confidential.”

“So you’re a felon.” Harvey states. Mike shakes his head and corrects with a smile that exasperates Harvey, especially when he only wants to know whether Neal is another Trevor. “Neal’s a good friend and a reformed conman.”

“Social engineer.” Neal says with a flash of a smile just on the right side of wickedness.

And as they all take a seat at this table for four, it is just as ominous as it is thrilling.

 

“Red or white?” Neal asks with the menu opened and not even an eye on the wine selection. He isn’t looking at Mike or Peter, he knows both men too well to even bother.

“Personally, I’d go with a Pétrus.”

Neal smiles, secretly delighted to find Harvey Specter’s capability of picking a bottle that might even be enough to impress Moz. Except, Peter has always been the one to rain on his theoretical parade and interrupts with a hand up, eyes narrowed. “Wait, how much is that?”

“You probably don’t want to know.”

Neal bites the insides of his cheeks and makes a face to cover the fact that there is nothing he wants to do more than reach over and soothe out the furrow between Peter’s brows.

He is just short of sitting on his hands.

“How about a Grands Echezeaux instead?” Harvey offers in return, lips quirking in the faintest hint of a smile.

“It’s not quite a Pétrus but I never pass up on a good Pinot Noir either.” Neal grins and finally lowers his eyes to the menu.

 

“So Mike,” Neal leans in when their menus and orders have been taken, “how did you land yourself a job at Pearson Hardman?”

There is no real heat in his eyes but it is just as easy to confuse that mischievous glint with malice, especially when Harvey has it out for him since that day he leaned in too close at Pearson Hardman.

“Well—” Mike starts but gets cut off just as quickly. Neal almost has to hold a hand up to hide a smile at Harvey’s defensive need to protect Mike.

“I just made senior partner, so I had to interview for a prospective associate. And, Mike here was marginally better than any of the Harvard graduates there.” Harvey says, smile almost a challenge.

Peter nods in sympathy. “I know exactly what you mean. I get new probies all the time and with all those years in Harvard, you’d think there’ll be more bright ones.”

“So it seems you really don’t need a formal education to get somewhere in life.” Neal comments offhandedly and if anyone sees Mike hiding a smile behind his hand, no one says a thing.

“That landed you in jail.” Peter rolls his eyes, deliberately avoiding his instinct to ask for an incriminating past, not that it isn’t obvious of the one between Neal and his good friend, Mike, with the puppy dog eyes. “I don’t think you are one to talk, Neal.”

“Didn’t stop me from getting three MBAs and two doctorates.” Neal counters with a raised brow, and it is a short pause, still a pause none the less when he adds, “it also got me here.”

What he doesn’t say speaks volume.

(Peter isn’t blind or deaf or _stupid_. And because he isn’t all of those things, he also knows that now is not quite the time to play head games with Neal.)

“It also got me a constant headache.”

Peter’s comment gets a signature Specter smirk, and Mike laughs in good humor. But it is Neal’s reaction that he is looking out for.

And Neal has it in his notes that he’ll do no such thing, not that he hasn’t already revealed such a vulnerable hand but his lips are curving like he has had his dessert before the appetizer’s been served.

Peter throws a half-hearted sigh out into the air just as their dinner is served.

 

The food is good, the wine even better.

Which says a lot, considering how he doesn’t even _like_ wine.

He sips at the glass and it is also reassuring to see Neal finally playing nice. Peter may have a gut instinct but he hardly needs to glance twice to see the hostility between Harvey Specter and Neal. He doesn’t need to know how to spot a lie from a mile away to see the strain and when their too-firm smiles and empty compliments finally mellow out, he slowly lets himself enjoy the company.

Sitting across from the two (legitimate lawyers or not, he is still working towards taking Neal’s words at face value), Peter isn’t exactly sure what he wants to see.

Mike grins, and he looks nothing like the heart broken boy held together at the seams when he first meets him at his grandmother’s funeral, barely a week ago.

“—Harvey cares, he cares a whole lot more than he lets on.” He says with something that Peter may even call proud when he recalls a pro bono with a chauffer that Harvey is quite _fond_ of, and in those exact words too.

Neal smiles in indulgence and leans back (leans closer to Peter, and whether he wants to pretend that he doesn’t feel a thing, Neal’s heat leeches over and he can’t quite stop himself from wanting to mirror him and bring that space between them to nothing.)

“He is also a huge movie buff.” And Mike’s grin only ever widens when he glances from his boss back to the pair of them from across the table. Peter doesn’t know what he sees, he only knows that it pleases him a great deal.

“If only Moz was here.” Neal adds with a small curl of his lips, eyes glinting bright with mischief. “The two of them could have a quote-off.”

And it is not so much instinct as it is a reflex Neal has long since trained into him, because Mozzie’s name isn’t mentioned, not ever, sometimes not even when Haversham is here himself. So when someone openly admits to knowing Mozzie by name, Peter knows he’s got his work cut out for him.

With a shake of his head, Mike lets out a laugh. “Not sure if he would appreciate being surrounded by that many suits though.”

Peter can’t help by crack a small smile at the irony.

“Who’s Moz?” Harvey asks, glancing between Neal, Mike and a little inside joke that doesn’t seem to include him. He is not put out, per se, not after everything that he’s seen throughout the dinner and oh, has he seen enough to convince him of anything between Neal and Mike.

“A friend.” Mike easily supplies before taking a gulp of the wine. And instead of pressing further, Harvey only nods evenly as though he is satisfied. Peter watches as his eyes never break contact with his associate’s even when he tilts his head back to take a sip.

And Peter can’t help but feel a sharp pang of envy over the blatant display of trust between them.

He sees Mike smiling, just a shade too obvious, with no intention of hiding a thing when Harvey mirrors him one for one. And it isn’t fair the way he needs to be one step faster, that he has to make sense of Neal through his filters and his lies of omission to get at the truth.

He glances over at his CI and the man is simply looking down at his glass, smile a small thin line as he swirls at the red.

 

When they step out into the cool night air, Mike (a little drunk with fine wine he is still learning to drink and not crumble into a slobbering mess by the end of the night, he is working on it though) reaches out to grab at the sleeve of Neal’s suit.

And in his not-so-secret indoor voice, Mike says to Neal.

“You said to bring a date.”

Neal blinks at the sudden confession and tries to pull Mike just a little further away from the pair before he brings embarrassment down on all of their heads. “Mike, you’re drunk.”

But it seems like he will have none of that because he grabs Neal’s forearm and holds him in place. And in another one of those not-quite-whispers, Mike nods with absolute conviction. “Yes, I am. I’ve also taken enough exams high on more pot than I care to remember.”

Either he doesn’t hear or he simply ignores Peter’s mutter of _how do I even unhear that?_

“Neal, you told me to bring a date, so I did.” Mike glances over at Harvey with a duck of his head and it is nothing inconspicuous like he thinks it is. But no one has called him out on it and so he continues like this is still a secret between the two of them. “Now, admit that you will go straight for Burke. He needs that. In words.”

Neal blinks, mouth parted in a voiceless ‘oh’. And there is a near silent pause before Mike snorts at his own ironic choice of words.

But then he breaks himself off with a wild gesture of his hands and tries again. “What I meant is that you’ll be good for him and not land yourself in jail again.”

Neal’s eyes are a little wide, still very much aware of reality and all that Mike has dragged to the sidewalk. But Mike doesn’t seem to see any of that, instead, his grip on Neal’s arms only tighten.

“I trust you, Neal. He needs to too.”

So when Mike spins around to face the FBI Agent, Peter really doesn’t know whether he should run or push the other into Harvey’s arms (and run.) Ignoring the manic grin plastered over his flushed face, there is a sincerity in Mike’s eyes that he can’t quite look away from.

And call it devotion to honesty, Peter doesn’t run.

“Peter Burke. You’ve caught my friend twice already, don’t let him get away.”

 

“I didn’t know we were on a date.”

Harvey says when he has his associate in the backseat and Ray has started into the evening traffic. The smooth jazz filters through and there is no more plausible deniability.

Mike shrugs and replies. “And I thought you don’t date.”

“I don’t.”

“But you still accepted my invitation to one.”

“You asked me to ‘grab a bite’, Mike.”

“...Would you believe me if I said that’s what the kids are calling it these days?”

Harvey gives him a stare. “Aren’t you supposed to be smart?” And he says that last word like it wrongs him, it probably does.

“Oh, I am.” Mike doesn’t exactly smirk (puppies don’t know how to smirk and that’s just it) but it comes close. Because when he leans in, his eyes are bright with a certain kind of wicked laugh. “That’s why, Harvey, I know better than to lose small when I can win big, it’s not a gamble when you know the odds.”

“Whoever taught you that taught you well.”

And then he is dragging him over and into his space, his lips just shy of claiming before Mike laughingly murmurs, “you’re such an egotistic bastard.”

There is something to the way his mouth forms those words, a way that makes Harvey’s grip on the other just that much tighter.

He holds him back a fraction of an inch to add (always eager to have the last word). Not that Mike isn’t willing to give him that either, not when he has given him his all. And there is still that Specter smirk that is more or less everything that Mike wants.

“Next time, we need to work on getting you drunk though.”

“Good luck with that, Harvey,” he says around a kiss and then another.

 

“Neal.”

He says his name when the usual goodnights, I had a great time, let’s do this again sometimes, are exchanged with Mike’s head heavy on Harvey’s shoulder, attempting to stand still with a sway in his steps.

“Um.”

“Did Neal Caffrey just lose his tongue?” He tosses him a rueful grin, a lifeline in the quick spin of things that Mike’s made. Neal looks away, his face a careful blank but Peter can see the lines of fond exasperation in the way Neal looks at the pair walking further away. “How do you even come back from that?”

“What? You mean how Mike just came clean?” And he can’t help but make another jab even as he tries to soothe away the small frustrations building up between them but Neal has always been able to bring both the best and worst out of him. “You could learn a few things from him, you know.”

“As if I need you to figure out my tell—”

But as he leans over to pluck Neal’s fancy fedora from his head, Peter doesn’t care for best or worst. Not when he has his mouth over his, effectively shutting the conman up before he has a chance to protest. It’s an insistent buzz that has always been there, no spark, just a low burning flame that spreads.

“As if you even have one, Neal.”

And then Neal is pushing back, lips opening into a smile beneath his, matching him one for another.

 

“You actually think he was drunk?”

Peter nearly snorts at the question but Neal is pressed against his side and the heat is dizzying. And even if he wants to pull him against his front for another go, he isn’t all that eager for being arrested for public display of indecency either.

Peter simply tugs the other man closer, hand warm on his lower back and replies.

“Not a chance.”

XXX Kuro


End file.
